Report: Home Appreciation Still Flat

New quarterly data show Sacramento area home values haven't budged much from the previous three months.

The good news for homeowners in the Sacramento area is price appreciation is not going down.

"Sacramento actually did pretty well," says Alex Villacorta with the research firm Clear Capital. "It came in at number 13 on our top performing metro lists."

Villacorta says Sacramento area home values are up by seven percent from this time last year. But the quarter-to-quarter number is relatively flat - only one-point-one percent.

"This quarterly appreciation has been declining for the last couple of years," says Villacorta. "So really watching to see where it goes over the next quarter will be pivotal for the Sacramento region."

The numbers are similar for California as a whole.

Villacorta says statewide quarterly appreciation grew by only one-point-one percent. Villacorta says quarter-to-quarter data have been declining since April of 2013 when the increase was six-point-one percent.

"That’s obviously very significant. That’s five percentage points over that two year spread. And it doesn’t necessarily mean that prices are going down for the state, it’s just that rate of growth is tapering off.”

Meanwhile, year-over-year data show California home prices are up nearly eight-percent; a big drop from two years ago when annual appreciation was at 19 percent.

The Sacramento area median home price is now at about $300,000.

The Clear Capital data also show that only 12 percent of the California homes sold in the last few months were bank-owned foreclosures. That's down from about 50 percent during the height of the foreclosure crisis several years ago. Villacorta says foreclosures are no longer a driving factor in the market. 

"Now the market is really being asked to 'shoulder the load' through traditional means," says Villacorta. That includes normal buyer demand and first-time home buyer activity.